How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

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FleetlinePhil
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by FleetlinePhil »

SOX replacement continues apace, including the vast majority of the concrete standards. I haven't seen a single one yet that has had a replacement LED lantern fitted, although there are some which are not marked with a blue cross, so perhaps that will be the case eventually.

I don't seem to be able to get the photo to load in the correct orientation for some reason, but could somebody with more expertise tell me what model our new LED lanterns are? Also, the old lantern in this photo is an oddity, as it was changed about three years ago from the standard SOX. It burns white, and appears to be a fluorescent tube? I can't recall any others locally, any thoughts as to why this one lamp might have been changed?
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martinyoung91
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by martinyoung91 »

The LED lantern is a Philips Digistreet.
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by martinyoung91 »

Jonathan24 wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 15:11
martinyoung91 wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 21:51
Jonathan24 wrote:
Belfast seems to be getting a fair proportion of money spent on LED lighting at the moment. These are just some of the ones I have seen, all replaced in the last month or so:

Ravenhill Road (from Ormeau Embankment to Rosetta Roundabout) - columns and lanterns replaced

Ormeau Embankment - columns and lanterns replaced

Ladas Drive - lanterns replaced

Upper Galwally - lanterns replaced
Yes, there seems to have been a push in the Belfast area to get main roads switched over. North Belfast has seen an absolute glut recently, with Crumlin Road, Oldpark Road, Cliftonville Road, Lanark Way, North Queen Street, West Circular Road, Cambrai Street, Tennant Street, Antrim Road to the M1 bridge, Woodvale Road, Skegoneill Avenue and Shore Road (partially) being done. I think the Sydenham bypass, Saintfield Road from Forestside to Carryduff and Belvoir Road are to be changed over too. Also there have been a lot more casual replacements with LED. Already there are 2 LEDs replacements out of 60ish SOX lanterns in my own development.
The Saintfield Road has now been converted to LED, with the exception of 3 lanterns outside the KFC which remain as SON for some reason...

It was dark when I was passing but I did notice some of the old columns which bizarrely were not replaced as part of the column replacement scheme a number of years ago are still standing and these haven't been converted to LED either and remain as SOX (although the bulbs seem to have failed in these).
They did eventually replace those 3 outside KFC so the whole stretch from Forestside to Carryduff is now done (including the Park & Ride). I think the SOX lantern you pointed out (just by Baronscourt ?) was a column they forgot to remove when the others were replaced some years back. Incidentally I noticed in the recent TNI update to Derry City council that £660K capital was allocated this year for LED upgrades in that council area. Given that DC has approximately 10% of the NI lighting stock, it's probably fair to assume that the entire spend for NI would be somewhere around £6M this year, so it would seem to be the first phase of the 10 year program to replace everything, although nothing has been officially announced. Most of the conversions I've noticed recently seem to have been 'main' roads with taller columns, so I presume the approach is to replace higher wattage sox/son lanterns first.
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FleetlinePhil
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by FleetlinePhil »

martinyoung91 wrote: Tue Jun 19, 2018 20:58 The LED lantern is a Philips Digistreet.
Thanks for that!
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Glenn A »

Absolutely nothing remains of the old columns and lights in Newcastle, they're all black metal columns with LED. Gateshead hasn't totally converted yet, and there are a collection of streets on the former Clasper Estate that have kept their seventies lanterns and columns, but these will be swept away when the site is redeveloped.
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FleetlinePhil
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by FleetlinePhil »

Bryn666 wrote: Tue May 08, 2018 12:33
FleetlinePhil wrote:The SOX lantern outside my house has been out for two weeks now, presumably this is not now going to be attended to until Calderdale's LED replacement scheme starts next month. The concrete standard was replaced by a steel one about 15 years ago, which is considerably taller than the remaining concrete ones in the street, so it will be interesting to see if they are all replaced in the scheme. In the meantime, we are very much in the dark :(

EDIT - much to my surprise, I came out of the house on the 1st May to find a cheery guy on a cherry-picker replacing the SOX element. Presumably it will have a life of a month at most, assuming the LED replacement runs to schedule.
Probably not, by the looks of it Calderdale are embarking on a lantern swap like most authorities - it's just too expensive to replace columns unless you really need to.
The steel standards with SON on the A646 and A6033 in Todmorden have been re-lanterned, except where a few new ones were put in where the new Lidl store has required a small change in locations. The vast majority of concrete columns in residential streets have been replaced, however one estate with post-top lanterns has had some of the standards re-used, including this one https://goo.gl/maps/Vu6ZVQAcroH2. Surely the presence of the attached post box would not be the deciding factor?

The other thing that puzzles me is why there is a wide scattering of SOX fittings that have not been dealt with. On the GSV above, on the cul-de-sac that goes off to the right, one fitting has been converted to LED but the one at the far end remained SOX (as of two weeks ago anyway). Our street was done in June, as was the street behind us, but that one still has two SOX lanterns, and there are plenty of other lone survivors spread around the area. Is this apparently haphazard method of replacement the norm?
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by brummie_rob »

An interesting insight into the LED replacement programme that has been happening in Solihull since 2012:

https://takeclimateaction.uk/stories/so ... EutI4j0oq4

What I find interesting that there will still be 15% of stock which isn't LED, which if you drive around the place right now, it seems most is now LED, though I did find one or two old mercury lamps hanging around on some country lanes.
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Glenn A »

My street has had its 1978 vintage street lighting changed to LED last week, It's interesting the original lanterns were orange sodium, but as these started to wear out and give out poor light in the mid noughties, they were replaced by more powerful white bulbs, which have now mostly been replaced by LEDs.
Duple
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Duple »

Stoke's city council have begun to remove SOX (?) Lanterns. It is interesting on my commute at the moment how much easier I find the Cheshire East LEDs on the eye whilst driving.

SSE have replaced a large number of lanterns on the A34, I assume the Trent bridge (just before Tittensor) is a boundary as this is where the replacements finished.

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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by brummie_rob »

Duple wrote: Fri Aug 16, 2019 09:29 Stoke's city council have begun to remove SOX (?) Lanterns. It is interesting on my commute at the moment how much easier I find the Cheshire East LEDs on the eye whilst driving.

SSE have replaced a large number of lanterns on the A34, I assume the Trent bridge (just before Tittensor) is a boundary as this is where the replacements finished.

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I find the Cheshire East easy on the eye too, I think they are a bit darker but they seem less imposing than Stokes replacements which all seem fairly bright (though residential versions have one, two and three bars depending on the street).

The A34 replacements were SON previously and have been done over the past few weeks. The lights before actually matched the Staffs Council side, so I presume they were original features of the road.
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by scott125 »

Glenn A wrote: Sat Aug 03, 2019 18:08 My street has had its 1978 vintage street lighting changed to LED last week, It's interesting the original lanterns were orange sodium, but as these started to wear out and give out poor light in the mid noughties, they were replaced by more powerful white bulbs, which have now mostly been replaced by LEDs.
What lanterns were they for 1978?
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Focus 2
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Focus 2 »

Only a few years ago Gateshead Council replaced the lamp heads from 1990s "Salmon Pink" to brilliant white. Sorry, not familiar with the terminology.

The relatively new lamp heads are now being replaced by LEDs!
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Robert Kilcoyne »

Focus 2 wrote: Mon Aug 19, 2019 14:30 Only a few years ago Gateshead Council replaced the lamp heads from 1990s "Salmon Pink" to brilliant white. Sorry, not familiar with the terminology.

The relatively new lamp heads are now being replaced by LEDs!
The Salmon Pink lanterns would have been SON (High Pressure Sodium).
PeterJ
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by PeterJ »

The disaster is nearly complete in my area of West Yorkshire. Gone is my friendly night-time neighbourhood and the pleasant views.
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Patrick Harper
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Patrick Harper »

With a very recent house move the closest streetlights to me now represent a 'downgrade' compared to the prior residence as they are SON rather than LED. Wiltshire Council are taking it slow.

That is, unless I leverage my brand new Philips SRS201 lantern and install it on a column on our property, in which case it will be SOX. :D

Hampshire is stuck with a mix of SON, metal halide and fluorescent from the PFI starting a decade ago, although isolated improvements since have involved LED lights.
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by liamf656 »

Nottingham City Council completed its PFI a couple of years ago in which all of its *very* widely varied street lighting was replaced in favour of the Philips Iridium and WRTL Arc (Urbis Evolo and Sapphire in small numbers), however recently Philips Lumas have also been appearing on new developments. So I doubt LED will be common here anytime soon.

Nottinghamshire County Council did have a wide range of SOX and SON in which a scheme commenced in 2015 to replace all SOX units with LED equivalents with the Holophane Vmax plaguing the county (the Luma also used in small numbers here). The other LED lantern that was used for a short time and is uncommon, I've not been able to identify so I've linked it below. Identification will be much appreciated :lol:

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.0504396 ... 312!8i6656

In neighbouring Derbyshire, SOX is still very common although LED replacements are making steady progress. The county council seems to change their mind regularly on its preferred lantern, so there is a variety of LED light models in the county. Derby City Council are also replacing, albeit slowly, their SOX lights but overall Derbyshire won't be fully LED for years to come.

In other news, I have read that Shropshire's street lighting won't be fully LED until at least 2054!!
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Bendo »

Knowsley have int he past few years replaced all their lighting, now apparently they are thinking of doing it again. https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/li ... s-17846280

Surely LED was an option when they did that, great way to waste a load of cash though.
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Fenlander »

We've got a double whammy, LED streetlights outside the front of our house, LED as its cheaper than previous technology but part time LED streetlights on the street at the back of our house (because LED isn't cheap enough). Very noticeable that the birds are singing at midnight when I'm putting the bin bags out even at this time of year.
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by haymansafc »

The last SON lantern on our street (A Thorn Beta 5 – top entry, too) was replaced last November. I presume it was left as it was the only concrete column that survived complete with it's original swan neck. It's been sleeved and now fitted with a post-top LED lantern. The rest of the street had been converted to LED around six months prior to that, as the original concrete columns had already been sleeved sometime back in the 1980's or had the odd casual replacement metal column. The vast majority were already on side entry lanterns (again, the majority being Thorn Beta 5's) with the odd post top WRTL 2600.

In my immediate area, I don't know of any surviving SON or SOX lanterns on residential side streets unfortunately. We had one of the very last on our street and there were also a few other identical installations (swan neck with top entry Thorn Beta 5's) a few streets away which were all sleeved in the same manner at the same time.

Various SON lanterns are still on the major roads in the local area (the A41 most notably, which remains dominated by post-top WRTL Arcs) but SOX lanterns are sadly getting close to extinction around these parts now.
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Re: How long before all streetlights in most areas are LED?

Post by Bryn666 »

I don't know why people are so nostalgic about orange skies at night. It's much more pleasant now you can see vast numbers of stars in urban areas and the roads when driving aren't a washed out yellow which masked signs (hence why we needed expensive external sign lighting in lit areas).

LEDs are a vast improvement and I have no issue with the actual light. My issue is the sheer banality of design, nearly all post-top steel galvanised CU or Stainton columns with lanterns that look like a 2 year old designed them.
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